Dolphins on course for NRL's sweet 16

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The Gold Coast Dolphins are set to be admitted as the 16th team
in the NRL for 2007.

The league will decide this season whether to add a team and,
although the Dolphins were rejected last year, The
Sun-Herald understands they are unlikely to miss out again.

The key for the Gold Coast is to convince the News Ltd half of
the NRL partnership committee that they are financially viable.

They will go a long way towards doing that when Gold Coast
managing director Michael Searle announces soon that the Dolphins
have $15 million in the bank.

Searle was in Sydney late last week meeting investors. He has
been in regular contact with NRL chief executive David Gallop and
other NRL management figures and said he met News Ltd chief
executive John Hartigan last month.

Gallop said the bid by the Dolphins was already "significantly
stronger" than it was in August, when their application for
inclusion was rejected, as were bids from the Central Coast and
Wellington.

"The Gold Coast have got a compelling case," Gallop said. "The
league would have to look at things very carefully before making a
decision, but the improvements the Gold Coast have made to their
business plan are important and their enthusiasm is undoubted."

Gallop said he believed the partnership committee was
"open-minded" on the issue.

It is understood that when the bids were rejected last time the
ARL half of the partnership committee was open to expansion but the
News Ltd side was not.

Central Coast financial backer John Singleton pulled out of that
bid after they missed out and the absence of a strong Central Coast
bid this time makes it easier for the partnership committee to
admit the Gold Coast rather than have to pick between two strong
bids.

Gallop said whether the Dolphins made it into the competition
for 2007 was not dependent on the league renegotiating its pay TV
and free-to-air television deals early. The deal with Foxtel runs
out next year and the free-to-air deal with Channel Nine in
2007.

He said with the game in such a healthy state and another strong
commercial performance expected this season, the time might be
right to add another team anyway.

"We've just come off a season in which we had record crowd
figures and great TV ratings and our sponsorship revenue and
merchandising sales are way up," Gallop said.

"We'll continue to monitor the game's financial situation as the
season goes on and make a decision on expansion when the time is
right.

"Financially, the game is in the most stable condition it has
been in for many years and we have to be very careful to protect
that."

The NRL has been guiding the Dolphins along the path towards
making their bid as strong as possible in what Searle described as
a "collaborative process". The Dolphins were told to increase their
equity base and engineer improvements at their proposed home
ground, Gold Coast Stadium at Carrara. Searle says they have done
that.

"We had $10 million in the bank last time and in a few weeks
I'll be able to announce that we've got $15 million in the bank,"
he said.

"The Gold Coast City Council has begun work to extend the
eastern stand at the stadium and improve the catering and
car-parking facilities.

"We're not taking anything for granted about getting in, but
we're optimistic. What we're trying to do is make our bid so good
that the league can't not let us in."

Gold Coast Stadium will host two pre-season trial games
involving NRL clubs next month in a test run for the bid in the
league's eyes, with Gold Coast people getting the chance to vote
with their feet by turning up at those games. Gallop said he would
meet Dolphins officials again at one of those games.